There was a time not too long ago when all graphics
cards were cooled by tiny little aluminum heatsinks. Then along came ATI and Nvidia who
developed faster and stronger GPU's which needed active cooling, and so fans
were added.

The fans started off fairly quiet, but as graphic card
technology continued to advance, things began to get louder and
louder. Now as we sit in the face of nVidia's NV30 which is reported to
produce as much as 60 Watts under load, it's comforting to find at least one
manufacturer producing an after market VGA cooling solution that can handle the
heat. Silently.

The Zalman ZM80A-HP is the latest incarnation
of a revolutionary concept we saw introduced early last year, and one which
has been garnering a lot of attention of late.

At first
appearance, the ZM80A-HP
seems complex and unwieldy. The large front and rear heatsinks
stand out 15mm millimeters from the surface of the card, blocking off
one PCI slot, and a special mounting bracket is all that makes direct
contact with the GPU core. The gold plated heatpipe which has a diameter
of just 5mm seems impossibly small for the task, and with so many
joints in the assembly seems unlikely it will ever be able to transfer
heat effectively. All those concerns are immediately put to rest of course,
as we begin unpacking and flipping through the manual.

Each component in the ZM80A-HP package is well
finished, and the instructions (which are a must read) are clear, concise, and
illustrated very well. In addition to the actual heatsinks, core mounting bases,
and heatpipe, Zalman also include a small phillips screw driver so you can
assemble everything along with a pack of spare parts with spare thermal compound.
With the aid of a very well laid out manual, and clear diagrams it's not too
difficult to assemble the ZM80A-HP from its many parts.

VGA Card
Specs

Parameter

ZM80A-HP

ZM80-HP

ZM50-HP

Weight:

400 grams

385 grams

130 grams

Surface Area:

1300 cm2

1000 cm2

400 cm2

Material:

extruded aluminum

extruded aluminum

extruded aluminum

There are actually
two sets of base mounts; one for ATI cards which have closely spaced mounting
holes, and the other for nVidia, SIS, etc. cards which have their mounting
holes spaced further apart. In the following examples we'll be using a Crucial ATI Radeon
9700 as the main test bed since ATI have a number of problems with their OEM
cooling solution.

Before we
go further, I'm sure
many of you are wondering just how a small gold plated copper tube can
"magically" move heat energy from the front of a video card to the rear...